In 1995, under newly elected Texas governor George W. Bush, the Texas Legislature mandated that public schools in Texas which taught sex education classes had to teach public school students that "abstinence only" is the best method of birth control. Below are the results which range, depending on the STD in question, from poor to dismal.

As Talk To Action co-founder Frederick Clarkson summarizes the newly released Texas Freedom Network report, Just Say Don't Know, on the failure of Texas' "abstinence only" policies, in a story at RH Reality Check,

'Just Say Don't Know is based on two years of research by Wiley and fellow health education professor Dr. Kelly Wilson which they describe as "the first, specific, in-depth examination of what is happening in classrooms, beyond the boardrooms where policy is established and companies where textbooks are developed."  Their analysis is based on tens of thousands of pages of documents, curriculum materials, and district policies from nearly all of the state's more than 1,000 public school districts.

"We can now say with certainty the following about the state of sexuality education in this state," the authors declared.  "Abstinence-only programs have a stranglehold on sexuality education in Texas public schools.  An overwhelming majority of Texas school districts - more than 94 percent - do not give students any human sexuality instruction beyond abstinence.  Additionally, just over 2 percent simply ignore sexuality education completely.  What is left is a miniscule 4 percent of Texas school districts that teach any information about responsible pregnancy and STD prevention, including various contraceptive methods."

Wiley and Wilson stated that in their "professional opinion ... our schools are failing Texas families by turning out generations of sexually illiterate young people at a time of high rates of teen pregnancy and STDs." '